I just finally bought the R2 King and I set. So everyone can thank me for this R1 release. My karma strikes again!

Anybody buy the boxset yet? Or the individual titles?
Is the South Pacific picture improved, colour-wise?
Is Carousel anamorphic?
Is the Todd-AO version of Oklahoma watchable this time around?
Is this version of Liliom different from the one already available?
Any new earth-shattering improvements we should know about?

If you print it here, it will be a first. No reviews seem to be out so far for the set or the individual titles.

There's a review on this very site for Carousel:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read....=24907&___rd=1

Oddly, it doesn't seem to address either of your (pretty common) questions directly. However, given how the video was praised, I assume it was anamorphic. And I'd also assume that the Liliom print will be identical to what was presented earlier by Kino.

I look forward to someone else (DVDBeaver?) tackling this so we can get some of this cleared up.

My understanding is the Oklahoma release is identical to the earlier one (as is The Sound of Music), and all of the widescreen films in the set are anamorphic (the overseas ones were). I have not seen them yet, but will as soon as the DDD sale starts and they ship them to me. IMO this set is a no-brainer if you enjoy these films.

Interesting review but as I own the Kino version of Liliom (as well as the non-anamorphic Carousel), I really want to know about this new version. The Kino version has frame jumps and abrupt lighting changes and it would be nice to know there is more than one print in existence.

I put my hope in DVDBeaver and DVDSavant (who has reviewed the Kino film before).

all of these are in slim packs

I just rewatched the Kino version of Liliom. The picture is fuzzy as if transferred from a videotape and it's overcropped vertically. It could sure use a new transfer, which I hope is what's on the new Carousel DVD.

Somebody in this forum ( http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/s...0&postcount=34 ) has posted screen caps of the Liliom included in the German Carousel and it looks very promising:





In those first two shots, the bottom horizontal line almost doesn't appear on the TV screen in the Kino version. Furthermore, the picture here is clearly photographic and better than video quality.



It seems our British cousins didn't get Liliom as an extra, though, so we should count our blessings.

Little-known fact: The screen rights to Liliom, which has been made into a film five times so far (not counting Carousel), belong to 20th Century Fox, just like those of Carousel.

I have the region 4 collection, and the artwork is superb. I am really disappointed they didn't give the same treatment to the region 1 art.

Really? Cool... I'll go for the box then.

I went back to dvdbeaver.com's original review of the Kino Liliom DVD (see: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews14/liliom.htm ), which states:

Please compare this screen cap from the Kino version:


with this one from the German Carousel 2-disc package (the new transfer):


I think my Kino edition of Liliom - which cost me something like $ 32.95 CAN before tax) - will end up as a recycled Christmas present for some member of my family who is not too tech-savvy - along with the non-anamorphic Carousel!

As the new Carousel - which includes the new Liliom transfer - goes for around $ 20 US on amazon.com, this is a no-brainer.

The State Fair 2-disc package is also identical to the previous edition so the boxset's value all rests on the new editions of South Pacific, Carousel (including the new, improved Liliom transfer) and The King and I.

I'm also a fan of the scaled down set packaging.

It didn't take me long and I finally gave in to buying the whole set. My existing double-dips will go in my Christmas presents' bin.

The first thing I did of course was to check the extras on Carousel, which are all great, and check out the Liliom transfer.

A foreword says that it's been restored from the best possible elements. The standard 20th Century Fox logo of the Kino version is replaced in this print by a hand-made Fox Europa card similar to the others in the opening titles.

The image and sound quality is simply amazing. It allows the viewer to appeciate in particular Liliom's ascension to heaven, which is an important scene for at least two reasons: (1) Franz Waxman's ethereal music is the reason he got the job to write James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein's score - thus changing the course of film music history - and (2) the general atmosphere of the piece and the presence of the two angels calling themselves «God's police» were a major influence on every one of Jean Cocteau's films from that date, including scenes in the netherworld between life and death, otherworldly judges and motocycle-riding «angels of death». Cocteau even borrows a line from Liliom («You're a funny little kid») and uses it in Beauty and the Beast's final scene («Vous êtes vraiment une drôle de petite fille»).

This transfer makes visible every elaborate miniature and all the details of the surreal (yet naive) matte paintings of Paris by night, the stars and angels in heaven and the futuristic decor of the heavenly police station while allowing to hear, for the first time, every nuance of Waxman's score. Also gone are the fuzziness and the mysterious changes in lighting intensity which marred the Kino version.

This transfer is clearly worth buying Carousel by itself. Its a true restoration that restores the magic, not only of Fritz Lang's film but also of Ferenc Molnar's original play. I can't wait to check out the other wonders of this set...

^

That's fantastic news. I nearly shed a tear when I saw what Kino had released -- that was a damn shame. Great to see that finally remedied.

I ordered the box via the DDD sale. Should have it in a week or so.

This version will have you shedding tears of joy!

Glad I jumped on this yesterday!

I'm now watching Carousel...

1. It's anamorphic and the bitrate is maximal.
2. Billy Bigelow's pants don't shimmer anymore.
3. Shirley Jones' commentary is as inspired as it was on Oklahoma: she really brings out that every part in this play was a magnificent acting opportunity for the actors.

I watched the South Pacific road show version last night...

This is the first DVD edition since 1999 and it's also the first that is anamorphic. The Todd-AO picture comes across very well, with a high bitrate and the sound is powerful. I admit to never having seen this film in its entirety (even in its regular version, except on TV and bits on a laserdisc, although I know the soundtrack by heart). The director experimented with colour filters (overwhelming yellows, reds or blues) to suggest a dream state, anxiety or the feeling of being in love. (Like most R&H musicals, this play's primary subject is the ups and downs of sexual attraction.) These were very disturbing in every other format but are acceptable here as they are alternated with crystal-clear «normal» images that are as pellucid as the Ryan's Daughter transfer was (one of the best ever).

The overall impression is that the viewer alternately feels like he/she is on location in Hawai, inside the head of the actors, under the influence of a powerful hallucinatory drug or watching a particularly involving stage presentation where the lighting director has mixed his medication.

As R&H were in charge of every detail of the production, the music, singing and orchestrations - and casting - are the primordial factors, the pretty pictures being just icing on the cake.

I don't recommend the road show version as a first viewing experience because the film is already challenging to watch in its regular form. The 15 minutes of extra footage is of inferior quality and yellowed, flat and/or shaky and the viewer is not given much extra information for his effort except a bit of extra horseplay and off-colour jokes by the boys, most notably in the opening «Bloody Mary» and «There is Nothing Like A Dame» numbers. A must for completists and very nice to refer to, but the mix of all those colour schemes interspersed with this yellow-copperish footage can get to be just a little too much to take at times and this version runs almost three hours... so you'll need Visine. Still, the road show version is a major undertaking as it obviously necessitated a lot of sound as well as picture editing to make everything run relatively smoothly.

I only listened to the road show commentary off and on but the guy is a regular chatterbox and gives a ton of useful information.

The extras are numerous and interesting, including TV footage of Mary Martin and Enzio Pinza and a 15-minute vintage «Making Of» black and white featurette, a «60 Minutes» episode where Diane Sawyer escorts James Michener back to the island where he wrote «Tales of the South Pacific», the elborate Mitzi Gaynor screen test and a lot more. For more general background on the history of the play, its making into a film and R&H's relationship with the Hollywood establishment (besides what's in the commentaries), you can refer to the King and I extras, a lot of which are original and which are even more informative. In them, Rodgers and Hammerstein really come out as courageous independent producers out to buck the system every step of the way - and making a fortune and musical history in the process.

I couldn't even imagine a more complete package. ***** out ot *****

Great info! Thanks!

I was interested in getting these also when I found out that they no longer had English subtitles. As I've gotten older my hearing has decreased and I can't understand all the dialog in some moves. Having English suntitles turned on adds to my enjoyment of the movies.

The previous editions had English subtitles. I wonder why they were left off these transfers.

All six films, including their variants, the two versions of Oklahoma, the two versions of South Pacific, the two versions of State Fair and Liliom, as well as most of the extras are subtitled in English. All six primary films even have special singalong karaoke subtitles that move along with the sung words during the musical numbers.

Baracine,

Thanks for your comments about Liliom. Paul Mavis has posted a few screencaps from the film in his review of Carousel, and they look just as good as the R2 screencaps.

Just a quick question: How long does Liliom run? Basically, I'm just curious if Fox re-transfered it properly or if they did a PAL->NTSC port. If it runs less than 116 minutes, then it's probably the latter.

Liliom runs 117 minutes - a full minute longer than the Kino version - and that's strictly screen time, with the word «FIN» fading out 5 seconds before the end.

Thank you for alerting us to the updated dvdtalk review: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read....=24907&___rd=1 .

BTW, check out the Cocteau-like «angels of death» from that film.

I checked out Oklahoma...

The bad news - which was to be expected - is that this transfer is exactly the same as the preceding edition. The film comes in two versions and the Todd-AO version on Disc 2 is still hazy and not as sharp as the Cinemascope version on Disc 1. (Increasing the sharpnesss of you monitor will only increase the grain and not the detail.)

The good news is I figured out why this time... This is a 2 hours and 25 minutes film. This particular Todd-AO film (the first of its kind) runs at 30 frames per second instead of 24 frames per second like the Cinemascope one*, so in terms of disc space, that's like engraving a 3 hours and 3 minutes film with a regular frame rate. To make the numerous extras fit, this transfer skimps on the bitrate at every occasion and that explains the lack of sharpness. You must also factor in that the Todd-AO 2.2:1 aspect ratio carries more visual information than the Cinemascope 2.55:1 ratio (16 % more information to be precise, that is 16 % less black space on each frame). In order to do the film justice, it should have been spread out on two discs by itself or, at the very least, some of the extras should have been moved to disc one or to a third disc. Which leaves the door open for yet another edition, possibly in HD...

On the plus side, this is one of the very rare instances of a film-on-DVD that has relatively no «NTSC judder» since its frame rate is almost exactly the same as the frame rate of NTSC video and that is most visible in scenes with turning wheels (which don't run backwards), picket fences (which don't have a moiré effect) and the like. The Todd-AO version also has wide-angle, deep focus and crane shots which were not possible with the limited capabilities of the comparatively primitive Cinemascope lenses. It also captures the actors in the earliest takes of each scene before they became exhausted - or more familiar - with them.

* You can demonstrate this by counting how many times you have to press on the PAUSE button to make the film advance by one second of running time: it's 30 times for the Todd-AO version and 24 times for the Cinemascope version. Interestingly, the 10-min 1955 featurette «This is Todd-AO» on the same disc is captured at 60 video frames per second (each frame is doubled in the transfer, which takes up a lot of disc space!) whereas the later (1958) «The March of Todd-AO» newsreel is back to the old 24 frames per second rate. (My thumb is sore from counting.)

Cool! Thanks for checking on that for me. Looks like there's absolutely no excuse not to pick this up right away.